SEATTLE, July 31, 2013 – Gigabit Squared today announced its first major investment in its Seattle dark fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) project, purchasing conduit along with other assets from Zayo, a leading provider of telecommunications infrastructure and services in seven countries and 45 states. The conduit – essentially an underground pipe – runs the length of the City of Seattle from the northeast to the southwest and will carry the Gigabit fiber backbone for the Gigabit Squared Seattle project (https://gigabit.io/). The conduit purchase represents a multi-million dollar investment in the project and will help Gigabit Squared more effectively utilize excess fiber capacity the company will lease from the City of Seattle.

Gigabit Squared Seattle is a public-private partnership with the City of Seattle, the University of Washington and Gigabit Squared to build a gigabit community within Seattle. Gigabit Squared’s business arrangements with Zayo will enable Gigabit Squared to more efficiently and quickly deploy its fiber backbone that will support the FTTP project to provide gigabit speeds over fiber optic cable to Seattle homes and businesses. The resulting high bandwidth capabilities will support economic development as well as improvements in education, health care, safety and energy solutions as the program is adopted and grows to support emerging broadband applications.

“Seattle is one of the first communities for development and Zayo will work with Gigabit Squared to enable other communities in the future,” said Matt Erickson, President of Fiber and Infrastructure at Zayo Group.

“This agreement moves us many steps closer to activating service in the Seattle communities,” explained Mark Ansboury, president of Gigabit Squared. “We’re thrilled to be able to partner with Zayo to bring limitless possibilities to Seattle.” Ansboury added, “We encourage residents to visit our https://gigabit.io//signup page to show their interest in gigabit-speed service whether inside or outside of the 14 communities previously announced.”

Zayo will provide conduit, colocation space and other infrastructure services in support of Gigabit Squared in its Seattle project.